|
Similarly, as it seems to me, the wise of Egypt- whether in
precise knowledge or by a prompting of nature- indicated the
truth where, in their effort towards philosophical statement,
they left aside the writing-forms that take in the detail of
words and sentences- those characters that represent sounds and
convey the propositions of reasoning- and drew pictures instead,
engraving in the temple- inscriptions a separate image for every
separate item: thus they exhibited the mode in which the Supreme
goes forth.
For each manifestation of knowledge and wisdom is a distinct
image, an object in itself, an immediate unity, not as aggregate
of discursive reasoning and detailed willing. Later from this
wisdom in unity there appears, in another form of being, an
image, already less compact, which announces the original in an
outward stage and seeks the causes by which things are such that
the wonder rises how a generated world can be so excellent.
For, one who knows must declare his wonder that this Wisdom,
while not itself containing the causes by which Being exists and
takes such excellence, yet imparts them to the entities produced
in Being's realm. This excellence whose necessity is scarcely or
not at all manifest to search, exists, if we could but find it
out, before all searching and reasoning.
What I say may be considered in one chief thing, and thence
applied to all the particular entities:
|
|